


The Games We Play

by Venstar



Series: 2019 007 Fest Series [13]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venstar/pseuds/Venstar
Summary: for the MI6 cafe anon prompt list. Just like in Kingsman 1, an agent is planted with the new recruits to be "killed" if they aren't rescued. This year, James Bond has drawn the short straw. None of the new recruits recognise him, but how good is he at acting helpless?





	The Games We Play

This was ridiculous. Bond slammed the door behind him, leaving the other 00s sniggering behind his back. He closed his eyes. He could still hear Alec’s donkey laughter from the hallway. Christ, he needed a drink.  
“Problem, 007?”

  
Bond opened his eyes to see three people he’d have liked to have avoided for a little while longer. R, a terribly termagant of a tyrant with bright orange hair. Moneypenny, an ex-agent who masqueraded as M’s secretary but was really there to help him learn the ropes and protect him. And Q, a slender, carbon fiber knife sheathed in a wool jumper and charging cables. Unholy glee lit up Moneypenny and R’s eyes. Q looked concerned, he was fiddling with the cuff of his jumper, however, he flashed Bond a small close-mouthed smile.

  
R continued speaking to him. “Aw, did the widdlest and oldest and drunkest double oh get choosed to be the new recruit demo dummy?”

  
“R,” Q said, drawing out her name.

  
Moneypenny coughed into the back of her hand. He narrowed his eyes at her.

  
“If you mean did I draw the short straw because no one likes to play these antiquated, little games that upper management delights in forcing it’s most valuable assets into playing? Then yes.”

  
R ignored everything he said and pumped her fist into the air. “Operation Baby Agent Bait is go!”

  
Bond turned to Q. “I am going to kill her, someday.”

  
“Don’t worry, not before the slow-acting poison that I slip into your drinks takes effect on your liver.” R glanced at her watch and wiggled her hand in the air. “You’ve got about eight months left, give or take.”

  
“You used to be my favorite Q-branch minion.”

  
“No, I didn’t, that was always Q and you know it.”

  
Well, Bond had absolutely nothing to say to that. Neither did Q. They both stood blinking at R.

  
“Hey guys, I’M the asexual wonder of the squad here but why is it I’m the one with the vested interest in seeing you two bone before he dies of my slow acting liver poison? HEY BOND. BONE HIM BEFORE YOU DIE OKAY?” R pounded Bond hard on the shoulder, knocking him off balance.

  
“Stop that, you’ll wrinkle my suit.” Bond growled at her as he ducked away from her hard pounding sign of affection. Sometimes being liked by R was worse than being loathed by R.

  
“SSssshhh!” Q tried to slap his hand over R’s mouth but she was too fast. She dodged him and poked his ribs.

  
“I’ll put together a presentation of how it’s done. I swear!”

  
“That’s enough R,” Moneypenny said, patting her on the shoulder. “You know what M said. Stop asexually harassing the staff.”

  
“That’s what she said.”

  
“R.” Q was grinding his teeth.

  
“Get me out of this R, and I promise I’ll make you my favorite minion.”

  
R actually paused in thought. “I’ll get you out, but only if you promise to make me your favorite minion AND bone Q.”

  
“Stop saying BONE!” Q slapped her shoulder, all dignity gone.

  
“Anyways!” Moneypenny interrupted the same old fight that the threesome always had. Bond denying his lusting after Q, Q denying his own dark thoughts about Bond and boning and R trying to smoosh them together in some weird fascination to be the one to instigate the art of boning between the two of them.

  
She waved about a slender folder and tapped Bond on the nose with it. “Here, James. Or should I say Neville?”

He sighed. Deeply. Heavily. Regretfully. “I have the singular bad habit of surviving nuclear holocausts. Surely that makes me more valuable and gives me perks, which should include getting me out of this.”

  
“Oh, you get perks. You get to bone Q and you get your pension. Now, if you married Q, you’d get to bone him and if you died, he’d get your pension. So it’s a win-win scenario. Would you like me to pronounce you man and man? Maybe Agent and Quartermaster? I am licensed to perform civil marriages.”

  
Moneypenny, Q, and Bond stared at R.

  
“How-” Bond started speaking but was interrupted.

  
“When did you get certified?” Q asked.

  
Moneypenny tried to bring them back to the subject at hand. “Alright, so that’s good to know. So back to the subject.” She started walking away leading them away from the agent's breakroom and down the hall to the changing rooms. “You are “Neville Lambebatten. Recently recruited from the Royal Navy.”

  
“That shouldn’t be a difficult cover story. Being an old sea dog yourself.” Q interjected. “We thought we’d keep it simple, believable. Easy to remember, easy to fool the new recruits.”

  
Bond opened his mouth to argue about something, but Q glared at him long and hard. He snapped his mouth shut at the look. Fine.

  
“Whatever you say, Q,” Bond said smoothly.

  
“That’ll come in handy during the boning.”

  
Bond rolled his eyes and sighed. “Asexual harassment, R. I’ll tell HR”

  
“Do it.”

  
Bond thought about it, but she also had that department terrified as well.

  
“For God’s sake,” Q mumbled before straightening himself out and pushing the door to the men's changing room open. They filed in. All of them.

  
“Hey!”

  
“Hey!”

  
“What are you doing?”

  
“This is the men’s room!”

  
“Come on now!”

  
“What?” R barked. She literally skipped in a circle. She hooked her thumb at Bond. “You think you’ve got something I haven’t seen before? I’ve seen him completely starkers and I didn’t faint so if you think you can do better, try it. It was this big.” She held her index finger and thumb a centimeter apart.

  
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you, R?” Bond said sotto voce.

  
“Wait, it was this big.” She shortened the distance even further.

  
The room broke out into sniggers and guffaws. The men went back to changing and primping, ignoring the women.

  
“We’re giving you the same Mi6 issued gear that the recruits will be given, except you will have access to me.”

  
“Oooh,” R exclaimed dramatically.

  
“Maybe R, depending on if something goes to shit with the other agents in the field.”

  
“I’ll also be within reach, earpiece wise if you need me,” Moneypenny said.

  
Q continued. “We’re pretty sure they won’t recognize you. Try NOT to be obvious. Try NOT to take the lead. Try NOT to kill any of them on purpose or by accident.” Q opened a locker and pulled a non-descript gym bag out. “Sorry, you’ll have to get rid of your bespoke. Until the exercise is finished, this is what you’ll be wearing to complete the persona. You also have extra items of clothing, toiletries to get you through the week.”

  
Bond mouthed the words ‘the week’ to himself and unzipped the bag Q handed him. He stared grimly at the horror that had been hidden inside. Bright shirts with cartoons, black or grey shirts with skulls, Shirts about coffee. Cargo pants, a denim jacket, bright white trainers, gold jewelry with eagles and skulls.

  
“I hate you all.”

  
There was nothing else to it. The day started out worse and now it was going to get worse. There he was, standing amongst a bunch of baby agents, with his hands thrust deeply into his cargo pants. There was an unfortunate amount of whispering going on around him.

  
“Aren’t you a little old for this?” The male agent standing closest to him had the nerve to ask.

  
“I bet he’s a spy.” The flirtatious little blonde with the constantly wiggling eyebrows spoke up.

  
Bond made a swirling motion with his finger and tried to look excited. “You’ve done it. You’ve solved the case.”

  
The girl who guessed he was a spy looked super pleased and smug.

  
“I am a little old for this.”

  
The smug-faced one deflated.

  
The baby agents looked confused.

  
“Oy, then why’re you here?”

  
“Why are you here?” Bond asked in return. He shrugged his shoulders. “Queen and Country.”

  
“We’re ALL under thirty-five and you’re obviously…” The girl just waved her hand up and down him.

  
“I’ll be twenty-seven next January. The youngest of you lot.”

  
The male agents guffawed.

  
“Maybe they want someone expendable,” Bond said. He wiggled his eyebrows at the blonde girl. “Ever think about that? Why me. Because I’m old? Because I have more life experience than you all? Because in the end, we’re all going to die, it’s just a matter of when? Did they tell you the life expectancy of agents?”

  
“Bond. That’s enough.”

  
Bond stopped mid-tirade as Q’s voice came through his earpiece.

  
“We want to weed out the unworthy, not scare away possibilities.”

  
“You are all unworthy!” Bond told the group. “Peasants!”

  
The recruits edged away from him. “Yo, that dude is mental.”

  
“Too right.”

  
So Bond was left to the side as the instructors came in to hassle the baby agents into order. It took five instructors half an hour of yelling and one strike to the back of his knee to get him to come to any sort of order. He grumbled to himself as he fell in at the end of the line.

  
“Bond. Remember when I said I don’t like to lose agents?” Q asked him softly.

  
Bond’s thoughts flashed back to the last conversation they had in the men's locker room. This exercise was always hard on Q. He had to purposefully sacrifice an agent and not intervene to save their life. Bond had tried to laugh it off with some smart comment about how all of the agents were dispensable and that there wasn’t much longevity to their career. He had been brought up short by Q’s grip on his hand. He forgot how much strength lay beneath those deceptively delicate digits.

  
Q voiced his concerns. “Fatalities happen all the time in training exercises. No one is exempt. Even you know this.”

  
“I remember.” Bond said answering Q’s question.

  
“Good. Now behave so I don’t have to take it out on the instructors who are just doing what we ask them to.”

  
“Do I get a biscuit if I'm a good boy?” Bond murmured.

  
“Only if you’re a very good boy.”

  
Bond grinned.

  
“Oy, old man, stop doing that it’s creepy.” The blonde agent frowned at him.

  
“I wasn’t aiming it at you. I was aiming it at him.” Bond pointed to the lanky, red-headed male agent at the head of the line. He blew him a few kisses.

  
“007,” Q said, drawing the words out. “Please behave.”

  
“Well, at least if I fake die in this event, maybe they’ll feel bad if I manage to save one of them.”

  
“Play well with others, please.”

  
Bond tried. He super duper trooper really tried hard to play well in this ‘pretend you know nothing and fake your death’ game. At least he got to work on his play-acting and his sarcasm.

  
“No. Nope. Not that one. Oh dear. Wow. How did you manage to make it this far in the recruiting process? Maybe the Americans are hiring. Have you tried applying to MI4? It’s where all the fourth sons of all the Earls go. Someplace to keep them busy with Monopoly money and blank pages.”

  
This did not endear him to his baby agent teammates. He could have sworn they tried to kill him all on their own.

  
“007. 007 are you paying attention?” Q hissed.

  
“What? Oh, hang on. You pathetic excuse for a cart-horse. Just move already!” Bond yelled at the blonde woman. “What?”

  
“It’s getting close.”

  
Bond closed his eyes briefly. “Thank God. It couldn’t come fast enough. I hope you have enough data.”

  
“I think I do. I think recruit #3 is very interesting.”

  
Bond turned a sharp eye over to #3. The red-headed male agent. He was the only one still functioning through Bond’s insults. Bond commented as much to Q. “Nice shoulders. Good head on him. Tell R I mean the top one, not the bottom one.”

  
“Moving on,” Q grumbled. “When the alarm sounds, take the disc out from under the faceplate of your watch and put it in your mouth. Make sure to get off a couple of shots, but I’ve rigged your gear with a few blood squibs. Fake getting shot and then bite down hard on the disc.”

  
“What will it do?”

  
“You’ll become Juliet to their Romeo.”

  
“Fantastic. Keep the redhead. Dump the rest.”

  
Q gave a little huffing laugh. “I’m sure R will be delighted to assimilate a new redhead. Are you sure about the rest? The blonde pegged you from the start.”

  
Bond gave a shrug and flipped open his watch. “As you like. They’re your agents.”

“So they are. Good luck, Bond. See you in medical.”

  
“I HATE medical.”

  
His hate didn’t sound so disdainful with a mouth full of fake death tablet. And there went the siren. Bond made sure to put on a good show, protecting the baby agents, much to their shock. It was wonderful to see the looks on their faces as he staggered back when he had been a fake shot. He bit down hard on the tablet and...oh shit...that...was...fast…

  
He awoke sometime later, he didn’t know how long, to the steady beating of his own heart and the beeping of some equipment. He cracked an eye open and glanced around. Ew. Medical. He began to pull at his I.V. until a hand caught at his.

  
“Easy, 007. Just let me call the nurse for this.”

  
Bond settled backward. It was Q. Of course it was. Watching over his agents, no matter how silly of a reason it was to be in medical. He laid back and watched through slitted eyes as Q took charge.


End file.
